


Stories of the Second Self: The Lightest Prod

by John_Steiner



Series: Alter Idem [123]
Category: Urban Fantasy - Fandom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-12
Updated: 2020-02-12
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:54:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22673638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/John_Steiner/pseuds/John_Steiner
Summary: As the world's first known angel in the age of Alter Idem, Luke Cyrus' plan to remain isolated from society proved untenable. However, his goal of keeping all the denominations of Christianity split against each other was coming along just fine. Moving to Cincinnati, Luke watches up close the rise of Reverend Collins and his Wings of Hope Ministries as well as one Sariel Hayes. Of the latter, Luke sees an opportunity, but first he must tempt the pastor following Sariel into more rash and violent action to set Luke's plan in motion.
Series: Alter Idem [123]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1618813





	Stories of the Second Self: The Lightest Prod

There was a time not long ago that Luke Cyrus thought living in a castle built atop a rock in the middle of the water was the perfect place to be away from the world. It was not to be. Minsters, priests, bishops, and all other "authorities" of Christ's Word came to Luke for sanction, and he liberally gave it no matter the contradictions between them.

At least they thought he approved.

Luke didn't really, and chose to live away from people after spontaneously turning into the First Son of Light. He had been a monk of The Order of Saint Paul the Hermit until fifty-two years of age. Yet, turning into an angel also reduced his apparent age and his youthful health returned. To the world, Luke was the first angel, and so he abandoned his order to live as a real hermit. Not immersed in Earthly affairs, hadn't realized that made him a magnet and beacon to the christian world.

So, Luke left his refuge and his home country for the one place he figured no one would expect. It was the center that hosted one of the most egregious examples for which Luke feared would become of angels on Earth. The Wings of Hope Ministries was centered in Cincinnati, and Luke Cyrus, First Son of Light was curious how that affected the urban center of the post-Alter Idem American state of Ohio.

Luke had witnessed a great deal in the two years after his arrival, and was surprised even in an era where the mortal mind seemed all surprised out from the supernatural becoming the everyday. Religious denominations still quarreled over what Alter Idem and its five supernatural Pentacastes meant. Yet, the people of Cincinnati had largely returned to the daily grind of living alongside one another, despite the fact that only eighty percent of the people were still human.

What stood out most to Luke had been the fetishization of angels by some religious folk. Among those who had caught Luke's eye was a young angelic paralegal he watched in a restaurant, when some human grabbed her wrong and she let him have it, both rhetorically and physically. The latter part involved a backhanding with her wing, but when she also lit up the room using her inner light through her wing feathers, Luke knew what she was. He learned later that her name was Sariel.

Though, Luke realized, that hadn't been the first time he'd seen the young bright one take on a man of the cloth. In the early days of Luke's coming to Cincinnati he'd witnessed a strange sight. Reverend Collins had parked several of his own expensive SUVs on the street and stood atop one to warn the people of Cincinnati that Alter Idem was in fact the Opening of the Seven Seals of Revelations. Some other religious man, a human, had approached the angel, Sariel to publicly rebuke him.

However, watching the young woman speak, Luke came to realize two things about her. Sariel, an archangel like Luke himself, wasn't even religious and didn't much care for those who used their wings to invoke awe and admiration. However, neither was she interested in bursting the bubble of babel that Collins wove around himself to exploit the masses. Through the simple act of expressing her own uncertainties, Sariel undermined both Reverend Collins and those more honest Christians who rightly called him out as a fraud.

Sariel would be Luke Cyrus' perfect instrument. Yet, he first needed to goad her into a state where she'd be more compelled to chip away at the Rock of Christ's church. He needed to know more about her, which is how Luke crossed over to where he hardly imagined himself just two years prior.

He stalked her both on the street and online. Luke learned that she grew interested in another angel named Samuel Engall. Furthermore, he discovered that her mother's minister, Tony Bent hadn't given up following her. He just wasn't so stupid as to aggressively evangelize in her face and risk another winged beating.

And yet-- Luke knew just how to push the buttons of the faithful.

"Excuse me, good sir," Luke spoke up next to Tony Bent, as the minister sat in his car.

Minister Bent had parked on the opposite side of the street from the diner Sariel went to on her lunch breaks. Strange, Luke thought, one stalker failed to notice another, and so Tony Bent was taken by surprise.

"Do you need something?" Tony asked.

"Yes, I'm new here and need directions," Luke lied easily.

"Sorry," Tony said in excessive haste, "Can't help you there."

Luke shifted his wings so that the shimmer of light-bending feathers got Tony's interest. "The Spirit tells me you can, or else I misunderstood the sign."

Luke witnessed Tony's scalp shift slightly, and the minister said to him. "What sign? About Sister Sariel?"

"What do you know about that angelic man with her there?" Luke asked.

"I don't know anything about him," Tony answered, turning his attention back to the diner, and then looked back to Luke. "Why?"

"If you worry about Miss Hayes there you should bother yourself to learn why he's so interested in her," Luke suggested.

He waited for Tony to stare hard at the diner window where Sariel Hayes was visible, and then Luke walked off slowly. Tony might've turned to where Luke was only see him gone, and then wonder if he'd also been given a sign by the Spirit.

That's all it took, Luke Cyrus learned later in the news. Tony Bent had grown more obsessive over the lost sheep turned angel, to the point where his stalking turned into the murder of Samuel Engall. The police didn't have his name as the suspect, but Luke was fairly sure no one else would've had motive to murder the young winged man and not steal anything from him after the fact.

However, Sariel suspected something and in her spare time sought answers for Samuel's murder. Samuel's funeral was attended by his friends and family, with Sariel watching from a distance. She'd gone out with him a few times, and so no one sought to invite her to pay last respects.

When the service was over and Samuel's loved ones dispersed, Luke watched the young Sariel approach his grave under an overcast sky darkening with the coming storm. He didn't hear what she said to his headstone, but Luke witnessed her placing something on the marker before she too left. The mortuary crew went to work closing up the grave, as Luke finally approached the scene to read the headstone carving.

"Sorry sir," the pastor who had administered the funeral, "You missed the service."

"Seems I have," Luke said, staring at the grave, and then looked off into the direction Sariel departed.

"Really sad, what happened to him," the pastor remarked, "They still don't know who did it. That young lady who was here seems driven to find out, however."

A bright and prolonged flash of lightening struck down from the darkest patch of clouds, to which Luke Cyrus nodded. "Should she find the murderer there'll be hell to pay."


End file.
